The Marriage of the Sea has ratings and 22 reviews. Marian said: This liquid banquet of a novel was recommended to me by my friend Mary, who knows me.
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If you are a seller for this product, would you like to suggest updates through seller support? Learn more about Amazon Prime. Deirdre O'Breen is fourteen when she flees the primitive Great Blasket Island, leaving a stunning family secret in her wake before she arrives on the mainland. There, she finds a foreign, civilized world -- and Manus, the architect son of a wealthy, devout family. Together Deirdre and Manus build a marriage that, like Dublin itself, is fraught with hope and threatened by legacies.
When Deirdre's secret resurfaces, she is forced to confront the questions "How much of our parents do we carry? Do their sins and frailties shape who we become to our own children? Read more Read less. Customers who viewed this item also viewed. Page 1 of 1 Start over Page 1 of 1. The Nature of Water and Air. Customers who bought this item also bought. Sponsored products related to this item What's this? Like modern thrillers with gripping historical twists? You'll love this series. Bed of Bones Sloane Monroe Book 5. Sometimes even the deepest, darkest secrets find their way to the surface.
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Share your thoughts with other customers. Write a customer review. There was a problem filtering reviews right now. Please try again later. Kindle Edition Verified Purchase. Imaginative and well told story of Ireland, family, and finding oneself.
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Sets me dreaming of the shades of green, the damp, and the sea. One person found this helpful.
The Crane's View Trilogy
I love the way Regina McBride writes. She makes you feel like you are experiencing the story firsthand. This is not fast-paced or romantic or necessarily sad, yet it drew me in like all her stories. The Marriage Bed is her third, and while I didn't get the same thrill from it that I got from Water and Air, it certainly worked for me on a number of levels.
As we open, the two have been married for roughly fifteen years, and Deirdre is lamenting that her marriage has faded at the same time she's sending their two daughters to the same boarding school to which she was sent after a family tragedy long before the nature of this family tragedy is the central mystery of the novel. We then get an extended flashback from Deirdre's time at the school to her marrying Manus before returning to the present day, where Deirdre must face her various problems, including coming to terms with the mysterious to us, anyway deaths of her parents.
The big thing about this novel, even more so than with Water and Air, is McBride's writing. It's big, bold, almost palpably sensual, as much in a description of a flower as it is in a sex scene. This is a gorgeously-written book, and losing oneself in its pages is a pleasure. Gorgeous writing, however, can only take a book so far, and almost by definition any book so written is going to be slow going; there is a plot to it, to be sure, but it's quite leisurely at spinning itself out. There's not as much substance under the style as one might hope. It's a book that seems to invite browsing over a period of months rather than reading through.
I find this sort of thing enchanting; others might not. There's no denying McBride is a powerful, seductive writer, however, and if you haven't yet encountered her, you should. I'd suggest, however, starting with The Nature of Water and Air and coming to this one after. McBride's female protagonists are exquisitely nuanced, their deepest longings and secret fears.
They exist wholly-fleshed, surrounded by the turbulent beauty of the Irish coast. When orphaned Deirdre is delivered to the convent of Enfant de Marie by her grandmother, she is admonished to keep secret the true story of her parent's deaths, an incident Deirdre has pushed into her subconscious, burying emotions with memory.
Aug 29, Marian Deegan rated it really liked it. This liquid banquet of a novel was recommended to me by my friend Mary, who knows me well enough to know that a novel which unfolds between the twin mystical cities of Venice and New Orleans would charm and entice me via its settings alone.
This is a tale of evocative atmospheres, artistic yearnings and insecurities, and the complex interplay of love and betrayal. Alison writes sumptuously of mozzarella stuffed with coffee beans and pistachios, unforgettable green hats, the fragility of creative This liquid banquet of a novel was recommended to me by my friend Mary, who knows me well enough to know that a novel which unfolds between the twin mystical cities of Venice and New Orleans would charm and entice me via its settings alone.
Alison writes sumptuously of mozzarella stuffed with coffee beans and pistachios, unforgettable green hats, the fragility of creative egos, and the perfect dark blue hue: It is a delicious, sometimes luminous, often thoughtful, and transporting read. Jan 01, Melissa rated it liked it. Small, short chapters of intriguing characters that never really develop beyond sketches. There are many interesting parallels between Venice and New Orleans, usually subtle but not always so.
Alison definitely has a poetic way of looking at things: Small, seemingly insignificant details stick in your mind and trap you with their crushing beauty and despair. You're left wanting more. She does a lot with a small amount, but I wanted a concrete building rather than the drawings for one, even if th Small, short chapters of intriguing characters that never really develop beyond sketches.
She does a lot with a small amount, but I wanted a concrete building rather than the drawings for one, even if the drawings are magnetic and filled with promise. Oct 13, Amy rated it really liked it Shelves: It is not a very good book; I know this. Yet I inexplicable love this story. It is stories of various people tied together by their cities on the water: Venice and New Orleans.
It is a beautifully written book with vivid imagery and well thought out characters that are just on the precipice of reality. Aug 23, Julie rated it liked it. Story of several people searching for something but not finding it. About wanting and struggling Oct 20, Heather rated it it was amazing. It's been criticized for it's sketchiness, but that's exactly what I loved about it. Sep 14, victoria. The prose is lyrical and lovely, but fifty pages in, I was having a hard time caring about the characters, or even telling them apart.
Mar 09, Rebecca rated it it was ok Shelves: I started this book, got about halfway through and put it down for months and months, only to have it mocking me every time I passed my bookshelves. So, I picked it back up and started reading it again. For some reason the second time around was somewhat more fluid; this may be due to the fact the the characters swam about, never really leaving me alone until I properly finished their story It could of been that this book is so murky that I had to make a character chart just A solid 2.
It could of been that this book is so murky that I had to make a character chart just to figure out who was who and from which chapter they were last and which place we may be at! From New York to Venice to New Orleans and back again, these characters roam about in their thoughts and confusion but not enough expression or confrontation. They all seemed shallow in what they let wash by rather then what holds such lasting undercurrents. The amount of miscommunication, over analysis and over thinking with such vague conversations and too little articulation of feeling between all these sad, sad intermingling and unraveling of characters is almost too much.
And everything, even the chapters seem to ebb and flow with the water that joins them all together. I visited New Orleans one December in the early s was it really that long ago? I fell in love with the city, found everything I never knew I needed, but never had the chance to return. Venice has been on my places to visit list for even longer, over thirty years. I never stopped to think about the ways in which these two watery cities are similar. This book ties the two cities together with a cast of interesting characters who haven't met yet know of each other on the periphery of their I visited New Orleans one December in the early s was it really that long ago?
This book ties the two cities together with a cast of interesting characters who haven't met yet know of each other on the periphery of their lives.
I don't remember where, or when, I picked up a copy of this book but it was perfect reading for late December, over indulged hibernating. Critics praised her talents with f Alison's debut book, The Love Artist, was an interpretation of the demise of Ovid that was lauded for its fine detail and grace. The dialogue was confusing and vague. The book has a spooky desolate quality to it. The only reason I finished it was hoping for something positive in the end. The descriptions of Venice were evocative.
The characters were only loosely connected.
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I still don't know who Therese was to Max. There are many other books with more engaging plots to be read. I do not recommend this book. Aug 13, Susan rated it really liked it. I agree that the book is confusing, but i think the book is truly a representation of the sea itself, at times murky, always beautiful. The characters are always within a kind of watery dance with each other, and the cities of Venice and New Orleans are beautifullydescribed and embodied within the languasge. Jan 18, Carol rated it it was ok. This was a weird book. Six characters seemingly unrelated and the intersections of their lives quite honestly mysterious.
The one uniting theme, water, or more specifically the sea, I got, the rest of it, clueless. Nov 29, Nancy rated it it was ok Shelves: I find myself out of sync with a lot of contemporary fiction lately.